the film

Would you change your habits to live a longer, healthier life?code blue provides the prescription to do just that.

Coming 2019

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the film

Would you change your habits to live a longer, healthier life?code blue provides the prescription to do just that.

Coming 2019

code blue is a feature length documentary that reveals insufficiencies in the current state of medicine and provides a common sense solution by featuring the practice of lifestyle medicine to prevent, manage, and reverse disease. It presents the hurdles to the proposed shift: why is this not an integral component of the curriculum taught in medical schools? Why does this not resonate with the majority of current day practicing physicians? What is causing the lapse in communication to the general public? The unwillingness of some to believe that the American public—addicted to the quick fix—will embrace lifestyle changes is also addressed, as well as the undercurrent influences of the pharmaceutical and food industries that help shape public policy.

code blue follows the story of a passionate physician, Dr. Saray Stancic; medical student, Saul Bautista; and expert physicians/scientists who have the foresight to envision the potential of incorporating lifestyle medicine into clinical practice. Interwoven between these stories are successful individuals and organizations, as well as the personal narratives of chronically ill patients who learn to embrace this revolutionary method of medical treatment.

the facts

the facts

the facts

the facts

health crisis

Seven of the top 10 causes of death in the United States are due to chronic illnesses, two of which, heart disease and cancer, account for nearly half of all deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tells us that in 2012, about 50% of American adults (117 million people) were burdened with one or more chronic health conditions (1).

Many chronic illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some cancers are largely fueled by the obesity epidemic. According to recent data, approximately 35% of U.S. adults are obese, and over two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese (2). Peer reviewed medical studies indicate that by amending lifestyle factors including diet, physical activity, cigarette smoking, and body weight, we could prevent nearly 80% of chronic diseases that gravely compromise our quality of life (3).

Total health care costs in the U.S. were 2.9 trillion dollars in 2013 (2), with 86% of these dollars utilized to manage chronic illness (4). In 2016, despite extraordinary advances in diagnostics, as well as surgical and pharmaceutical interventions, we continue to witness increasing rates of some chronic diseases. How do we change this paradigm?

the story

the story

the story

the story

game changers

The project includes footage of medical students learning culinary medicine and growing vegetable gardens, a hospital and a doctor using farms to promote healthy behaviors, a cardiologist walking with patients, a lifestyle medicine physician food shopping with her patient, scientists in research labs, as well as the uniting of patients, medical students, and doctors who walk and run races together to promote exercise.

Medical student at culinary class.

We are filming the efforts of those who are already implementing initiatives for change, and interviewing experts who are pioneers in the discipline. This will include leaders like Dr. Dean Ornish of the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. David Katz of of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center at Griffin Hospital, Dr. Neal Barnard of The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington D.C., Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, formerly a surgeon at the Cleveland clinic and author of the NY times best seller Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Dr. Elizabeth Frates and Dr. Edward Phillips at The Institute of Lifestyle Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Dr. David Sabgir of "Walk with a Doc" program, and Dr. Jennifer Trilk at University of South Carolina Medical School in Greenville, where they have already integrated a lifestyle medicine core curriculum. code blue explores the question of how to reshape the current practice of medicine in order to empower both physicians and patients to take control of their personal health outcomes by prioritizing prevention.

why now?

why now?

why now?

why now?

now is the time, and we are running late...

The massive explosion of chronic disease in the U.S. is leading toward an era in which healthcare workers, medicines and treatments, hospital beds, and physician-patient time has been overwhelmed. Meanwhile, Americans are largely unaware of the toll their lifestyle habits take on their health. When they view their eating habits, 90% of Americans believe their eating habits are healthy. However, a 2013 survey found only 13.1% meet fruit intake recommendations, and only 8.9% eat enough vegetables (5). Compounded by our disordered eating, our society “largely relies on drugs to correct our health issues,” said Dr. Stancic in "Off Script", an article published in dirt magazine (6).

She believes drugs have become a modern day enabler, giving patients license to stick with bad habits by masking the symptoms of disease. “Little credence is given to lifestyle as a therapeutic approach to prevent and manage disease, despite the fact that we know lifestyle is a more effective therapeutic approach than a drug in many instances”, she notes.

"Once we get on the pharmaceutical bandwagon, it gets hard to come off,” she said. She knows this firsthand. Dr. Stancic was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) at the age of twenty-eight, in the last year of her medical residency. At that time, a neurologist told her that if she did not take her prescribed medications to prevent progression of MS, she could expect to be in a wheelchair by the age of 40. code blue recounts Dr. Stancic’s desperate search for help in managing her disease, which ultimately led to her present-day practice of lifestyle medicine. Her personal and professional success has led her to disseminate her message and, ultimately, to make this film.

Sometimes you choose films, sometimes films choose you. No matter the order, in my work I look to voice the stories of passionate people who wish to inspire and work for a better future. Dr. Stancic is one of those people, and she aspires to mold the direction of medicine, one patient at a time. code blue is a term used in medical facilities when a patient is in cardiac arrest and needs to be resuscitated for the heart to resume a normal rhythm. It is time to call code blue on the current practice of medicine. Pull the paddles, clear… SHOCK…. a healthier future awaits us.